Premier League Manager Could Be This Season’s First Casualty

THE tenure of Paul Heckingbottom as manager of Sheffield United could be drawing to a close if the latest reports prove to be true.

Shortly after the Blades fell to another home defeat this Saturday, September 16, their former boss Chris Wilder’s name started appearing in the media.

Since climbing back into the Premier League, the Yorkshire club has endured a winless streak, picking up just one solitary point in five matches.

Tottenham scored twice in stoppage time

United looked to be heading for the full three points at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as they went into stoppage time 1-0 in front. However, Ange Postecoglu’s Spurs managed to score twice to steal a last-minute victory.

Heckingbottom led the Blades back into the top-flight last season, after claiming one of the automatic promotion places from the Championship.

The 46-year-old took over at Bramall Lane in November 2021 but he could now be replaced by 55-year-old Wilder, should the club decide to find a new manager, according to Riath Al-Samarrai at Mail Sport.

In March 2021, Wilder was sacked by Sheffield United after a disastrous run of 28 games in which the side accumulated just 14 points. In his five years at Bramall Lane, he took the Blades from League One back to the Premier League. He is currently out of work after finishing a short-term deal with Watford at the end of last season.

Heckingbottom was not happy with the referee’s performance

During today’s match with Tottenham, six of Heckingbottom’s players picked up yellow cards from referee Paul Bankes. Ollie McBurnie also received a second yellow and saw red with just a few minutes left on the clock.

This resulted in the manager launching into an astonishing verbal attack on the ref after the match. “Something needs to be done now. This is not me moaning, I said it at half-time and when we were 1-0 up as well. The focus is on time-wasting, so the referees are dictating how we play”, he ranted.

“We set up from the back, then Spurs push forward and then that dictates how we play. But no, we’re just told to ‘play long’. The answer back to me was ‘well kick long then'”, he continued.

The manager stressed: ‘We work all week on how we want to play and the refs are dictating to us how we play the game. It can’t happen, but it’s happening. They’ve got obsessed about time-wasting and yellow cards’.

‘Wes Foderingham got a yellow card for handling outside the box and then got threatened with a sending off you can’t do it. The officiating is appalling, and it’s not about the football decisions, it’s just game management’, Heckingbottom insisted.

He added: ‘They just do not know what they’re doing. The people who are directing our game have not got a clue about our game. They don’t know football’.

‘My worry is all the focus is on yellow cards for time-wasting and when I talked to the referees they haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about. They’re officiating the game, they simply do not know the game’, he concluded, as reported by thesun.co.uk.